Mask of Night

by Philip Gooden

  After quickly changing into my street clothes, I left the Golden Cross and turned out into Cornmarket without encountering her. I hadn’t spotted her at the performance either. At first I’d been gratified by Susan’s request for an interview, then I was irritated by it and slightly troubled. But now that it appeared as though she’d changed her mind about talking to me, I grew disappointed. I’d already spoken to Abel Glaze to discover what secrets of mine he’d let slip but he insisted he’d said no more about me to the woman than terms of general praise.

  “Master Revill.”

  A hand touched me on the shoulder. I’d looked round a moment before and hadn’t seen her in the street.

  “Nicholas,” she said.

  “Mistress Constant. I thought you weren’t coming after all.”

  “Let’s walk down this way,” she said. “It’s emptier.”

  “Don’t you want to be seen with a player?”

  She did not answer but briskly led the way through Cornmarket and across the place called Carfax where it intersected with the High Street. I followed, curious now.

  “Did you see the play?” I asked.

  “Yes. It was witty enough.”

  This was very mild praise. I suspected that Mistress Constant probably had little time for plays. Some people don’t. I did not bother fishing for compliments on my performance, not being so desperate to hear them as I had been in my earlier acting days. Besides, I only played a simple soul in Love’s Loss, a small part.

  After a short time we found ourselves in a street lined with town houses and then turned down an alley on the right-hand side of it and so on to a selection of meadows framed with walks and fringed with trees which were beginning to turn green. My companion told me that we were in the meadows of the Cardinal’s College or Christ Church. A few people were strolling about the walks, some of them threadbare scholars but others more plushly dressed.

  It was late afternoon. The sky was overcast but there was still warmth in the air. I was not averse to walking out with a handsome woman.

  But what did she want from me?

  “What do you want from me?” I said.

  “To find a murderer,” she said.

  This was said so matter-of-factly that I thought I’d misheard. I looked sideways at her, but she did not look at me. For the first time I noticed her jaw-line, clear-cut and composed.

  “Who has . . . died?”

  “No one has died.”

  For certain, she was mad – even though she might not have looked or sounded it.

  “It is more a question of who will die.”

  Either mad or, like my friend Lucy Milford back in London, she had the “gift”, was able to peer into the future. God forbid, not another seer, I said to myself.

  “I am sorry to say this, Mistress Constant, but are you sure you’re speaking to the right person?”

  “Perhaps you think I need a divine or a physician instead,” said Mistress Constant.

  This was what I did think, but it’s not altogether polite to recommend someone to a priest or a doctor unless they are in extremity.

  “I am serious and I am in my right mind,” she said. “Listen while I explain.”

  So I listened as we paced the walks of Christ Church meadows. Having agreed to meet her, I owed her that much.

  She explained that her own family were cousins to the main branch of the Constant family which had lived in this city for generations. She was born in Ipswich but her parents died within a few months of each other when she was young, very young, and she had been taken in by the Oxford Constants – that is by James and Sarah Constant, the parents – and brought up as one of the family.

  “Oh, but I thought your mother was still alive,” I said.

  “No, she is not. Why should you think so?”

  “Because I remember the day when we brought the injured Mistress Root to Doctor Fern’s house. She said that she’d been sent there by your mother.”

  “That is easily explained,” said Susan. “I have no memory of my real parents, none at all, so it is natural for me to think of the older Sarah and of James as my mother and father, and they have been gracious enough to allow me to call them that. And I have been like a sister to their daughters, Sarah and Emilia and the others, like an older sister. Emilia wasn’t even born when I arrived in this place. We had the same nurse in Mistress Root. We shared the same memories, played the same games as children, we wept and laughed over the same childish happenings.”

  By now we’d reached the river which was flowing fast and high at this time of year. So special is this university town that the river is dignified here with the name of the Isis, although we ordinary Londoners know it as the ordinary Thames. Obviously the water has come down in the world by the time it’s floated as far as the capital. I was still in the dark as to why Mistress Constant wanted to talk to me. So far, the story she’d told was usual enough. You might say that she was lucky to have been taken in by loving cousins. I said as much to her, in fact, while we paced along the bank.

  Yes, she knew that she was lucky. She had obligations towards those who’d taken her in all those years ago, she said, speaking in her low tones and in an oddly formal way. And those obligations were the reason she had to do something now since she believed that her cousin Sarah, young Sarah, was being poisoned.

  “Poisoned?”

  “I believe so.”

  “Sarah is the woman who wishes to marry William Sadler,” I said, thinking it was odd to be talking in an almost familiar fashion about two people I hadn’t even seen, let alone met. “There is some opposition to the match?”

  “Yes, but not so much,” said Susan. “I think that the two families are almost ready to lay down their, ah, arms. The union of the young would bring about the final reconciliation of the old.”

  “What do the two young people think?”

  “William is . . . careless,” she said. “He will accept what is put on his plate. While Sarah, she is glad enough.”

  This was an odd way of talking about a prospective match. Still I pressed on.

  “So – so – why do you think Mistress Sarah Constant, your cousin, is being poisoned?”

  “Because she has an enemy who is determined she shall not marry William Sadler. I believe in this – this enemy also.”

  “And she has actually talked of enemies, of being poisoned?”

  “Not in so many words, although she did once mention discoloured or strange-smelling food,” said Susan Constant. “She is a delicate woman. She would weep plentifully over the death of a favourite dog. She has done so before now.”

  This distress over a dog’s death didn’t seem to me so unreasonable, though Susan Constant’s tone suggested that she would not have been so easily affected. She continued, “But I have only to look at Sarah to see that something is working away at her from the inside. She has grown thinner and careworn, she has complained of pustules and blisters on her back. She says she is sometimes hot and feverish.”

  “And this is making her suspicious?”

  “It is making me suspicious. She has a trusting nature. Since she will not look out for herself, someone must be suspicious on her behalf.”

  “Maybe she’s anxious about the prospect of marriage,” I said. “Even if the opposition to it is really quite small, she may still be troubled by the idea of going against her parents’ wishes.”

  “Oh she is sick, believe me,” said Susan.

  I was affected by the helplessness in her voice. I was inclined to believe her, or at least half-inclined. I watched a heron take off on the other side of the river, its boxy wings casing up the air.

  “Has anyone else detected these symptoms you talk of?”

  “No one knows her as I do, not even Nurse Root. If they noticed anything wrong they would probably put it down to an anxious mind and heart, as you have just done.”

  “And has Sarah mentioned the signs to anyone else? Her intended husband, for instance.”


  “She – she would not say anything to him. Anyway, I do not think she is aware of her true state. Or does not want to be aware of it. She tries to laugh it off.”

  “What about consulting a doctor? Doctor Fern?”

  “Not him,” she said.

  “Why not? After all, you must trust him.”

  “Why so?” she said, sounding genuinely curious.

  “You described how he was clever enough to find your missing cup by casting for it.”

  “Cleverness is not trust. There is a world of difference between a missing trinket and an attempt at poisoning.”

  “Someone else then? Oxford must be full of wise men for you or your cousin to speak to.”

  “I tell you she will not take her condition seriously. She would rather think of her wedding day. Dream of it.”

  “When will it be, this wedding day?”

  “There are negotiations taking place between my family and the Sadlers. If they are satisfactory the wedding will be celebrated soon.”

  “I still don’t see why you are telling me all this. What can I do?”

  “I do not know where else to turn,” she said, and so naturally won a small quarter of my heart if not my head.

  “I’m just a player.”

  I avoided the “simple” addition this time.

  “Another member of your Company told me how you once helped a family in Somerset when they were in distress and how you brought light into a dark place. It is reputed that you can do these things.”

  “Who told you?”

  “Abel Glaze is his name.”

  So that was it! That was what she and Abel had been talking about at the Ferns’. Well, it was my fault for having hinted to my friend that I had been instrumental in resolving a problem to do with the Agate family and the deaths which had occurred in it.* Of course, I might just have let slip details of one or two other riddling affairs which I’d been involved in. Now I was repaid for my casual vanity. If you have a mystery then bring it to N.Revill and watch him fumble his way to a solution.

  We were still walking side by side along the river bank. Now I stopped, forcing Susan Constant to a halt as well, and turned to face her.

  “Mistress Constant, I do not think you are being altogether straightforward with me.”

  A baffled look crossed her face.

  “Why not . . . Nicholas? And you should call me Susan.”

  I grew a bit warier at this.

  “Whatever I should call you, you are not telling me everything. You are fearful for your cousin Sarah because she is sick, and because you think that someone is determined she shouldn’t marry. But there is no evidence for any of these beliefs – apart from the fact that she’s grown thin and careworn – and the – what was it? – the blisters on her back. Where does this talk of poison and enemies come from?”

  “You will compel me to say more, Nicholas?”

  “If there is more to say.”

  “Listen and you may judge. But if you didn’t believe me earlier then you are even less likely to believe me now.”

  She’d nimbly put me in the wrong by accusing me of outright disbelief – when what I really thought was that she had probably dreamed up a plot and enemies where none existed – but I didn’t protest. Instead I waited. Avoiding my eyes, she looked out over the fast-flowing waters of the Isis.

  “There was a woman died recently outside the city walls, on a farm near the Constant grounds.”

  “Poisoned?” I said.

  “Perhaps,” said Susan, ignoring the touch of mockery in my remark. “But she was old and ready enough to die.”

  “You knew her?”

  “Everyone knew old mother Morrison. She and her family have been tenants of the Constants for ever. But, listen, that is not the point of my story. On the day of her death I was out walking close to this farm. It was a fine morning and I was out early because I had not been able to sleep. The birds were singing with the spring. The sky was clear.”

  She turned away from the river and suddenly grasped my upper arm.

  “Then at once there was – was – a figure crossing the path directly ahead of me. I saw a figure.”

  “What figure?”

  “It was dressed in black. Some kind of black coat or cloak that was shapeless. It seemed to drain the light from all around so that wherever it moved there was a dead, dark space.”

  Her grip on my arm tightened.

  “It was carrying a long thin stick, held out in front of it. Like a probe.”

  She did not need to grasp my arm so tightly. She had all my attention now.

  “On this fine morning to see such a figure cross my path! Like a fragment of the night! But that wasn’t the worst aspect of it. The worst of it was the head. It had the head of a bird, a head all cased up in black. There was a snout which stuck out like a fat beak as if it had just crammed its maw. There were its eyes, glassy eyes, wicked round eyes which caught the glitter of the morning sun.”

  As she said this, Susan Constant was staring not at me but staring inwardly, remembering her vision of the bird-figure.

  “It gazed neither to the right nor left but moved across my path, within two arm’s length, three at most.”

  “It did not see you?” I said, struggling to keep my voice level.

  “Thank God, it could not have done. It was intent on other business. It glided on and disappeared among the trees and bushes by the side of the path. I – I did not want to turn my head and see it vanish into the woods.”

  “Are you certain of this?” I said.

  “I felt the passage of the – the thing,” she said. “As it moved across in front of me I felt a draught of air. And smelt a smell, a musty dead smell. Then I heard the noise of a body moving among branches, a slight noise, a rustling. It was not a spirit. I did not dream this thing, I’m certain.”

  She shuddered. Then it seemed as though she came back to herself. She looked down at her hand where it still grasped my arm. She even managed a quarter-smile.

  “There . . . Nicholas. I said that you were even less likely to believe me now.”

  “But I do believe you.”

  I did not say that the figure she’d described was the same, essentially the same, as the ones I had half seen in a back street on my first night in Oxford. A figure garbed in black with a bird-shaped head, holding out in front of it a stick like a probe or an insect’s horn. I had glimpsed several of them by night while Mistress Constant had seen a single one by day. But could there be any doubt that, separately, we had witnessed the same . . . prodigy?

  Perhaps encouraged that I hadn’t dismissed her story out of hand, Susan went on.

  “I stood there for I don’t know how long. I think I was afraid to move, and also afraid that the figure would come back, and between one fear and the other I did nothing. The sun shone and insects were buzzing about my head. Then I heard a terrible cry from the direction of the farmhouse where mother Morrison lives, where she lived rather, and that must have brought me to my senses because the next thing I knew I was running – not towards the house, but away from it. I ran and ran until I got home . . . ”

  “Did you tell anyone about this?”

  “I said no words but crept up into my chamber, my legs were trembling so much that I could hardly stand. So I knelt down and spent some time in prayer and eventually grew calmer in my mind and body. For a time I hoped that it had all been my imagination, that I’d never seen the figure cross my path or heard the cry from the farmhouse. But I know that I saw that shape as surely as I can see you now, Nicholas.”

  I put out a reassuring hand.

  “I said I believe you.”

  And now I briefly described the vision which I had experienced, the shapes shuffling along the dark alley, the flash of lantern-light from above, the nightmarish sight of the hooded and snouted heads. Susan Constant looked shocked, as if taken aback to have her own vision confirmed by someone else.

  “What did you do?” she said.

/>   “Like you, I went back to my room, to the inn where we’re staying in town. I ran back, if I’m honest. No one asked me any questions, my fellows were mostly asleep. It took me some time to get to sleep though.”

  “You told no one afterwards?”

  “Not until now.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “Glad I haven’t told anyone?”

  “Glad that I am not alone. That you have seen this thing too.”

  “This old woman you mentioned,” I said, “the one in the farmhouse, she died?”

  “Her death was reported the same day. She was found in her bed at the dinner hour. So the cry I heard must have been . . . ”

  She let the sentence fall away.

  “You’ve no idea what the shape was?”

  “No. But listen, I have seen it since and near to our own house too.”

  For the first time in her account I felt myself go cold.

  “Early one morning I was looking out from my chamber window – I could not sleep again – I do not know why but I have been restless and wakeful recently – when I caught sight of it, black-clad, bird-headed, outside among the yew hedges. It was there one moment and I turned away in terror and when I turned back it had gone.”

  I didn’t ask her what “it” was doing out among the yew hedges but my look may have been enough because she went on, “Later that day Sarah received a parcel. It contained a clay figure, like a plaything.”

  “A present? Who sent it?”

  “There was no mark of any sender. The parcel was left outside a back entrance to the house, with my cousin’s name on it.”

  “What is so terrible about a play figure?”

  “This one had a pin stuck in its belly.”